Sour Cherry Jam Recipe

I had grand plans for sour cherries this year. I knew that the sweet cherry crop had been bad, so when Mood’s Farm Market opened their u-pick sour cherry picking, I went the second day of the season. My thinking was that if I got there early, I’d get enough cherries to keep my in jam and pie-filling for the year. However, when I walked into the farmstand and asked to pick sour cherries, the 15 year old behind the counter just shook her and said, “you’re not going to find much.”

I told her I’d just do my best, and she shrugged her shoulders at me and wrote out the picking permit. As soon as I pulled up to the orchard, I could see she hadn’t been joking. In just over 24 hours, the sour cherry orchard had been picked nearly clean. Grabbing my bucket and step ladder, I began to wander, hoping I’d find a few pockets of cherries left.

I spent a bit over an hour out in the orchard, gazing at trees with an upturned head. I went up and down that step ladder at least 100 times, each time repositioning it to grab a bit more fruit. It was hard work, and yet it was also wonderful. All the stretching and bending, it felt like the most productive and delicious yoga I’d ever done.

I went home that night with scant four pounds of cherries, which rapidly became three pints of jam. However a lucky thing happened as I was making the jam. I happened to broadcast my disappointment with the slim haul on Twitter. Some friends saw it and invited me to pick some cherries from the trees in their community garden, which happened to be dripping with fruit. With Angie’s help, I found myself with ten more pounds. Jams and pie filling galore!

It might sound like I went to an awful lot of trouble for some sour cherries, but if you’ve tasted jams or baked goods made with little gems, you’ll know that the effort was well worth it. The flavor is bright, tangy (not sour exactly, just perfectly piquant) and, when combined with a bit of sugar, quite heavenly. I’ve been eating the jam stirred into plan yogurt (you might have picked up on the fact that yogurt is one of my favorite vehicles for jam) and I have six pitted pounds in the freezer, waiting to become pie filling at some later date – I plan on using this recipe as my starting place.

Now, time is beginning to run out on sour cherries, but you can still get them if you look carefully. Here in Philly, Beechwood Orchards still has them (at least they did today at the Rittenhouse Market) and from what I hear, more northernly climates are just getting them in. Sometimes you can even get them frozen, which, if you’ve got a sour cherry tooth like I do, isn’t such a bad way to go.

I do believe that it’s time to offer up another giveaway. This time, I only have a four ounce jar on offer (I’m telling you, this stuff is precious to me), but it should be enough to firmly plant the flavor in your taste brain and make you jones for more. Leave a comment by Friday, July 10 at 5 p.m. if you want a chance to win. One entry per person, winner will be selected via the random number generator.

4 pounds of pitted and mashed sour cherries, which should yield about six cups of jammable fruit

3 cups sugar

1 packet liquid pectin (that's half a box)

Instructions

Put three pint jars or six half pints (or some combintion thereof) in your canning pot and bring to a boil.

Combine fruit and sugar in a heavy, non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil and let bubble for a good twenty minutes, occasionally skimming the foam from the surface of the fruit as it develops. Add the pectin and boil for another five minutes. You want to cook it until it looks like boiling sugar - thick and viscous.

Kill the heat, fill your jars, wipe rims, apply the lids and rings and process in the hot water bath for 10 minutes. Remove jars from water and let cool on the countertop. When the jars are cool (I typically wait until overnight), remove the rings and test the seal by picking the jar up by the lid. If it stays put, your jars are good to store indefinitely.

I love the flavor of sour cherries, so I didn't add a drop of extra flavor to this jam. However, you are welcome to spice things up with cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, vanilla or orange (or anything else).

M,
I have about 2lbs of cherries left, and I need to use them up before they go south…
I made your jam, and started some cherry cordial, do you have any ideas for the rest? Have you tried drying them ever? (but I don’t have a dehydrator…). Any ideas are much appreciated!
R

Hmm. Honestly, when I get to that point with cherries, I just pit and freeze them, and assume that I’ll figure out some other use for them later in the year.

I don’t have a dehydrator, so I’ve never tried drying cherries. If you’re curious about that though, I’d suggest taking a peek at http://www.dorisandjillycook.com, Doris often dries fruit so she’s got some helpful advice.

We are making a batch right now! Door County, Wisconsin is having the best cherry season every. I’ve got 2 pounds steeping in vodka, 4 pounds being made into jam. 5 or 6 pounds in the freezer and about 2 cups for breakfast in the morning.

I made a batch of your cherry jam last night (our cherry season is late). I used half a packet of powdered pectin and it worked just fine. Your recipe was easy to follow and yielded excellent results. Thank you!

[…] in a store of chocolate, coffee, eggs, a flourless Gâteau à l’Orange et au Gingembre, and sour cherry jam. We take off towards the Black Forest, with Francy happily batting ferociously at the ball fringe, […]

I live in Michigan and my 10yr old son has a favroite tree that he loves to climb on or just hang out..yesterday he walks in the house with a handfull of these little dark red beauties..we ate one and sure enough its a sour cherry! we all love to have some jam on r toast…the good kind of corse :)… and I would love to suprise him with some homemade jam right from his tree..and I cant wait to use ur recipe..though I have never canned before so this will be a new expierece for me but I am ready for the challenge! Thanks so much for sharing xoxoxox Terrilynn

Marisa, I find that cherry pitters decimate the fruit by pushing the pit through the entire fruit. I go the low-tech route with a closed safety pin. I boil the safety pin to make sure it’s sterile and once it’s cooled, it’s ready for use. The swirled end of the safety pin is inserted into the cherry at the site of the stem and I can extract the pit by pushing it back out towards the point where the stem was.

The integrity of the fruit’s shape is maintained, less juice is lost, and it’s quicker than any pitter I’ve ever come across.

[…] cherries? I made jam, er, uhm, preserves of course! It took a long time and two recipes (one and two) to turn 10 pounds (16 cups!) of cherries into 11 1/2 jars (132 ozs!) of Sour Cherry Jam (I mean […]

Working on this jam as we speak! Im so excited to have found a recipe that calls for less sugar than most. I love sour cherry jam. Bought a couple little bags at a farmers market and then a dear neighbor brought over four baggies full. I have enough for a recipe and a half! Cant wait to taste it!

How mashed is “mashed”? I can only see a little of the consistency in the photo so I’m guessing at it and going by how chunky I want the final result to be. Hope that works okay (in terms of creating cooking surface by breaking down the cherries).

Quick question for you (hope you can answer it). My mom just picked up 20lbs of frozen sour cherries, but since our regular place wasn’t open she had to buy from somewhere else, and they already have sugar added to them. Apparently the bucket says net 10lbs, 1lb sugar (so 9lbs of cherries and 1 lb of sugar).

How do you think I should go about compensating for this in my recipes? Obviously acidity and sugar for preservation shouldn’t be an issue, so I’m not worried about spoilage, but I worry that I will over-sweeten. Any suggestions?

I have the honor of having my very own cherry tree in my yard. Just harvested 8 pounds last night. I’m making jam today! Usually, I dry them and make pie filling. The birds are eating my cherries as we speak but it is a holiday weekend….

HHHHEEEEELLLLPPPPP!!!!!!! I tried this as well as a strawberry jam this year using liquid pectin and I can not get it to set up. I now have a case of chunky strawberry & sour cherry syrup. What have I done wrong. This is my 1st full season of preserving and 2 of my biggest projects have produced sub par products.

Jeff, did you use the Certo liquid pectin? I’ve found that it doesn’t work as well as it used to. It could also be that you needed to cook it a bit longer, the times quoted in the recipe above are approximations. Cooking time can vary depending on the amount of water in the fruit, the width of your pan, the humidity in the air and the intensity of your stove. If you are really unhappy with the jam, you can take it out of the jars, recook it with a bit more pectin and rejar it. So sorry that it didn’t set up for you!

I am a sour cherry addict. My mother in law gave us a tree when we moved into our house 8 years ago (Okanagan, BC, Canada) We live in orchard paradise. I got my best crop ever this year, about 12 lbs, and have been pitting/jamming/freezing for the last few days. Nothing is better than Sour Cherry Pie. BTW I barely use the pitter for my sour cherries as I can usually pull the pit and stem all at once.

I’ve been using your book and website for a variety of recipes for jam, jellies, chutneys, etc. I have access to two very small sour cherry trees across the street from my house, open for the taking and just waiting (somewhat patiently) for the cherries to ripen.

I recently made 4 x 125 ml of sour pin cherry and current jelly (along with a handful of raspberries picked from canes that escaped someone’s yard) and it turned out wonderfully. I recently made the switch to Pomona’s Pectin and found it works really well especially since I’ve wanted to cut back on refined sugar. Using raw sugar and honey has worked out nicely.

Thanks again for all your work on Food in Jars and I use it almost exclusively this year since I’ve had so many great results (the Roseymary Rhubarb jam is AMAZING – I am addicted to rhubarb now).

Thanks for the recipe! I only had 5 cups of crushed sour cherries/juice and added chopped peaches to make 6 cups. Turned out beautifully! The sour cherry recipe that came with the pectin said 7 cups sugar and 2 pkg pectin for 4 cups fruit. Yours is much more to my liking. It must be the long cooking time that makes the difference. I cooked even longer for high altitude.

Just out of curiousity, how do you get away with so little sugar? I know others mentioned it, but as I’m standing here, actually making this recipe, I’m realizing that all the other recipes online call for 7 cups of sugar to 4 cups of cherries and sometimes up to 2 packets of liquid pectin. Which…I think is INSANE!

It’s still boiling, but from a taste test, I wouldn’t want it any sweeter. It tastes amazing already!

I just found a hatful of sour cherries and plan to make jam. I never did it before however your instructions seem quite clear. Only problem no pectin! I heard u could make it without and then I had heard about using an apple? I’ll give it a try. Thanks for a great website.

Heigh ho, cherry-oh time again. I don’t like using huge amounts of sugar either- I usually use Ball’s Low Sugar/No Sugar Pectin or Pomona’s, and put in about the same amount of sugar your recipe recommends.

I don’t like cooking it too long, tho- maybe about half the time you use- tastes too “cooked” to me otherwise. Obviously I run the risk of having the odd batch not set up very well. but it’s a risk I happily take.

May I suggest some almond extract as a last-minute addition, usually stirred in just as I take the jam off the stove.

Hello Marisa, what a great giveaway. I also have a question for you. I purchased some sour cherries today from a local orchard. The cherries are seconds or as the sign said day old. Some have blemishes on the skin. I tasted one and it was actually a little bit sweeter than the others. Have you used these types of cherries for you jam? My sister said she thinks it will make the jam look or taste bad.

[…] 3 cups of pitted cherries). For my second attempt a friend lead me to Food In Jars and I made the Sour Cherry Jam. My mistake was I did not boil the jam long enough (when they say boil that jam they mean […]

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[…] in a store of chocolate, coffee, eggs, a flourless Gâteau à l’Orange et au Gingembre, and sour cherry jam. We take off towards the Black Forest, with Francy happily batting ferociously at the ball fringe, […]

[…] cherries? I made jam, er, uhm, preserves of course! It took a long time and two recipes (one and two) to turn 10 pounds (16 cups!) of cherries into 11 1/2 jars (132 ozs!) of Sour Cherry Jam (I mean […]

[…] 3 cups of pitted cherries). For my second attempt a friend lead me to Food In Jars and I made the Sour Cherry Jam. My mistake was I did not boil the jam long enough (when they say boil that jam they mean […]